3 loads of laundry – nice job for the end of the world. Reminds me of a story from Ray Bradbury where the world was ending and the wife made the husband get out of bed to make sure the kitchen faucet wasn’t dripping.

I didn’t believe the alert in the first place, based mostly on instinct. The two Koreas had just sat down and agreed that a DPRK delegation would participate in the Olympics, so why would he fire off a missile at the US?

Then we found out after 38 minutes, which was about 35 minutes too long a period to wait, that it was indeed a mistake, and the laundry was still waiting to be done, so there you go.

Had a great visit there last summer, as well as seeing several important sites from the civil rights struggle, including a very emotional visit to the church where the young girls were killed in the bombing.

I like him, but I think they need more than what he brings (and what Longoria brings). Both those guys are in their thirties (I thought that team was trying to get younger?), and that’s a big yard for Cutch to patrol.

Longoria and McCutchen will improve this team, but it still has Pence in right, Belt at first and a mediocre starting rotation. Putting McCutchen is center still leaves a hole in left, and putting him in left leaves a hole in center. Arroyo, the third baseman who left in the Longoria trade, could become a pretty good player. The Giants gave up on him in a hurry.

This was borrowed from ladodgertalk
Dan Szymborski of ESPN.com has a column on players who may “breakout” in 2018. Christain Yelich is atop that list and he compares Yelich to Joey Votto and Will Clark and expects to see him put up that kind of season. He also lists Danny Salazar as a breakout candidate.

The next player he picks as a breakout candidate is Joc Pederson.

Pederson had a fairly miserable 2017 season, even earning him a stint for Oklahoma City (and typing that, it still feels weird that the Dodgers’ Triple-A franchise isn’t in Albuquerque). A lot of his offensive woes have to do with his .241 BABIP. ZiPS thinks he should have had a .296 BABIP in 2017 based on his hit ball profile and while he has underperformed the ZiPS BABIP in the past by about 15 points in his first two seasons, even a .280 BABIP would have put his OPS+ around 115-120 rather than 95.

The largest flaw in Pederson’s offensive game has been his plate discipline, but his overall weak season camouflaged his progress on that front. He swung at a lower rate of out-of-zone pitches than he did in either 2015 or 2016 and set a career high for swinging at the in-zone ones. Despite a career-high in overall swing rate, his swinging strike rate dropped to 9.5 percent, actually better than the league-average, a first for him. Two years ago it was at 14 percent.

As a former Duke Snider fan I have always wanted a slugging center fielder that could play very good defense. Joc probably was as good as Duke defensively prior to 2017. Neither have chiseled bodies like Mays had but Joc seems to have put too many pounds. Hopefully he comes back leaner and meaner and and faster.

I have been suspicious of his concussion having some impact (pun) on his defensive issues.

If Joc can get it together the Dodgers with Yelich in LF, Joc in CF, and Kemp in RF would be great. I put Kemp in there to spur comment.

Another article I read – can’t recall where – suggests that all the big-name free agents left have question marks about them. J.D. Martínez, for instance, is a terrible outfielder who’s not likely to age well, especially if he gets the six-year contract he wants.

Of interest to the Sunday Night Baseball watchers: Dan Shulman stepped away from the broadcast after last season and the Yankees hired Aaron Boone to manage the team, so ESPN had to find some people. It’s done so. Matt Vasgersian comes over from MLB to do play-by-play, Jess Mendoza continues in her role as does Buster Olney, and A-Rod joins them as analyst.

National League West

Full MLB Standings

Rules of the Road

Thank You For Not ...

1. using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2. personally attacking other commenters
3. baiting other commenters
4. arguing for the sake of arguing
5. discussing politics or religion
6. using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7. using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8. making the same point over and over again
9. typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10. being annoyed by the existence of this list
11. commenting under the obvious influence
12. claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with

Note: These rules courtesy of Jon Weisman's original list at Dodger Thoughts